The world of late night is shifting. Jimmy Fallon will be taking over for Jay Leno next year, which means someone will be taking over for Jimmy Fallon. Meanwhile, cable networks like Comedy Central, which has just given comedian Chris Hardwick his own midnight talk show, are trying to find new ways into a format long dominated by the major networks. Which means everything, essentially, is up for grabs. And there are some people we'd like to see more on late night TV. So we asked them to tell us what kind of show they'd host: who'd be on it, what they'd do with Lindsay Lohan for fun, the jokes they'd tell, what they'd do differently from all the other shows, and the things you'd learn. Because, to be honest, late night TV could use some tweaking. This would be a pretty great start.

"I don't want to do a late night talk show. I'd like to do a weekly, like on a Sunday night. Would love to do that. A daily talk show? No, thank you. But if I had to do one then I would just make conversation with interesting people, and no matter who it is I would just be very honest and in the moment. If I had to interview somebody who I was like, 'Oh, geez,' about — a creation of the media — I would be very honest and ask them what they do and how they feel. I'd just be really, crazy honest. There'd be no bullshit whatsoever. There'd be no pre-interviews, which I can't stand as a guest of shows, and it'd be a lot of conversation.

"I wouldn't go out of my way to be mean, but if a guest said something stupid, I would be in the moment and say, 'What does that mean?' And if they couldn't handle themselves, then they couldn't handle themselves. The reason that the interviews are rote is because of people like that. I think the audience would welcome that challenge. The audience wants real; the audience doesn't want contrived. I think ratings would go up on any show that approached it that way.

"That's not saying that the other late night shows are bad. They just do something different than what I would do. Letterman could stop Paris Hilton from being on, and he doesn't. I mean, Letterman is one of my heroes, and with what's-her-name — the other night he was totally in the moment and sincere. What the hell is her name, the nutbag? Lindsay Lohan. But I'm just saying though that there's an inherent falseness to any late night talk show.

"Why wouldn't I want to have people on my show who I want to like me and who I want to spend time with? They have this whole thing about these shows, like when you do a show you can't go on for three months, six months. If Lena Dunham wanted to be on my show every night, I'd let her be on my show every night. Same with Zach Galifianakis. Anyone who is wonderful and funny, come on my show every night. How lucky am I to have you? I'd love to have Woody Allen on. I'd love to have Albert Brooks on. There are people that are so ridiculously fascinating, like Mick Jagger or Keith Richards. I would love to just sit and have a conversation with Keith Richards.

"All I want to do is make really fun small talk. I'm doing what I want to see. Talk shows used to be like having a cup of coffee with somebody. The change is this: Late night talk shows used to be 90 minutes, and it was about having raconteurs on and interesting people. And then, at some point, it became project-driven. And it wasn't all about promoting before. People would go on The Tonight Show just to hang out with Johnny and smoke cigarettes and just chill out. Then they turned into this other thing."

"I shot a talk show pilot a few years ago and it did not get picked up, but God that was a good show. So what I would do with a late night show would be similar: spending time getting to know the artists that come in on a personal level and exploring their hidden talents. Anyone who comes on has to show a hidden talent, whether it is whistling or tap-dancing, or playing the ukulele. When I did the show at Largo, the audience ate it up so much, because the guest is doing this weird thing that you've never seen or they haven't talked about. Leaving the show, you feel like you know them in a personal way other people don't.

"There would have to be one theme tying everyone together, but it could be anything: the entire cast of a TV show, or musicians, or all of my old roommates. I had the cast of Mad Men on my pilot, and they demonstrated their talents. Jon Hamm has the ability to seduce anyone he wants, Jared Harris did a scene from Mad Men as different actors he could impersonate like Christopher Walken, and Rich Sommer is great at playing that bar game where there is a split screen of identical pictures, and you need to point out the subtle differences in each, so a blown-up live version of that was created for him. He really is quite good.

"At the end of the show I would have an interactive Q&A where I would bring the guests out as a group and then interview each of them with a question like, 'Cheryl Hines, my father left when I was six months old. What was your most embarrassing moment?'

"I want my show to end similarly to old variety shows, where they sing at the end, but I have a really bad voice. So I would earnestly sing goodnight to the audience with the song that my sidekick Kyle Dunnigan wrote with my voice going off the rails. I'd grab somebody's chin and sing to them and then go out in the audience and tussle someone's hair. People would think, Oh Gosh, she must be a little nervous, her voice isn't sounding so great. But then it never gets better."

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Tig Notaro hosts the weekly podcast Professor Blastoff and her album Live is available on iTunes.

"My level of interest is shockingly high. It's time. It's time for a real talk show. I would like to do a modern-day Lawrence Welk show, where you wear groovy clothes. A little kitschy, and with modern acts that people don't usually see. As an actor, I would love interviewing actors. I would torment them. I can get into their brain, because I know how they think and I know everything they don't want to be asked. Real personal and uncomfortable stuff, but funny.

"I would bring in low-budget B-movie actors, because their careers are just as valid. I would find actors who haven't worked in, like, forty years, and bring them on. I'd talk to former child stars and see what they're doing now. I'd talk to lottery winners ten years later. Because talking to celebrities is a bore. They all have programed answers. I want to bring in real people that are interesting. And I'd take Lindsay Lohan roller-skating. We'd go on field trips.

"I'd change up the whole format. I might do the monologue last. Actually, talk show would be the wrong word. It would be a variety show. And I would make sure it wouldn't be anyone you could see anywhere else, so if the guest was being brought on any other talk show, I wouldn't have them on. So I'd have a bunch of grateful guests.

"My show would either be canceled after an hour, or it would run for 25 years, depending on what happens when they see the sequence of me and Lindsay Lohan going to Magic Mountain. It would just be the best show ever. And it would be a hell of an hour."

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Bruce Campbell is the star of such movies as The Evil Dead and Army of Darkness. He currently stars in Burn Notice and was a producer of this year's Evil Dead remake..

"I grew up with late night. I grew up wanting to be Larry Sanders, even though he was a fictional character. But I very much remember being an adolescent when the late shift was at its height. It's different now. I think the Internet has changed comedy, how it's used and how it's made. I think Fallon definitely tapped into that big variety-show feel that comes along with having an amazing already established band, and his talent lends itself to different forms: He sings, he does impressions. It's very old-school Hollywood in a way people appreciate.

"I think the future of the talk show is specificity. What you see on Watch What Happens Live or even on a show like Talking Dead — you see programming that is almost very Internet-y, and that is very, very specific. If I were going to have a talk show, I would want to do some facsimile about what I do on my podcast, which is talking to experts about topics. I would want interviews to be topical, not general, almost like The Daily Show or Colbert Report. I don't think anybody cares about an actress's cute story that she's using to promote the film that's coming out that weekend. I love talking to authors. I love talking to people who make documentaries.

"But it's not just a question of choosing guests. It's choosing what they do and what they talk about. A big part of what Fallon does is apply the quantifiable success of the Internet to his show. He'll play beer pong with Betty White or do things with celebrities that are SEO-friendly. I would absolutely take what I learned from making and developing videos for Vulture over the last so many years and apply it to what works on TV. We always have an activity or an angle so it's not just a straight interview with Jackie Collins. We'll play a game.

"Whatever happens, I really hope they pick a woman, or someone of color. And I know that's a quasi-political thing to say, but that would be nice. Maybe Maya Angelou. It's a bold choice, but she's a bold woman. She's got a lot of life in her, and it would be nice to see someone beyond the clique."

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Julie Klausner hosts the podcast How Was Your Week, available on iTunes.

"We would both be sidekicks — there would be no host, just an empty desk. And we would sit on the ends of the couch, and the guests would come in and sit next to us. They'd pretty much be on their own. Instead of a monologue, it would just be us laughing hysterically during a long silence while we look at a spotlight.

"The only kind of guest we would have are people who hate the project they're promoting, like when Bill Cosby went on Carson and just talked about how awful Leonard Part 6 was. We would get people who are really embarrassed about the work they've done to come out and trash it. Curmudgeons we admire.

"We would have Scott's 8th-grade geometry teacher on to have him explain what the problem he has with Scott is. And John could ask the musical director from his parents' church to come by. She's been doing it for, like, thirty years, so there's got to be some good stories. John's father is a Lutheran preacher, and every week he'll come on and see if he can save us.

"There would definitely be a recurring segment where we eat sandwiches or something that we made earlier. And we don't give anything to our guests, that's just when we have our dinner.

"Neither of us is a big drinker, so I think we would just have angel dust backstage. Our dealer would be there, and the twist is that he's really just a drug dealer. He's always ready to run from the police or anything, and he runs faster than anybody because he's on angel dust the whole time. And he's in a bear costume.

"Carson Daly is going to be after Late Night, always. He'll just go deeper and deeper until eventually he's after The Today Show."

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Former 30 Rock costars John Lutz and Scott Adsit frequently perform at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City. Adsit will appear in the upcoming film A Case of You with Peter Dinklage, Sam Rockwell, and Vince Vaughn.

"I've thought about this a lot, and I would want it to be based in New York, just because to me I feel like there's so much New York has with music. I'd want the show to feel like one of those dive shows in Brooklyn. I would can the monologue. People who want that type of show have a place for it already. I'd want my show to be really interactive, really innovative in that way.

"Young people consume entertainment in a way that is different from even 10 years ago. They're used to comments. They're used to shaping things that are subpar. For me, I'd love to do something that's highly interactive. I have a vision of a late night show that puts Internet and TV together, whereas now they're so often in competition. I'd love to do a live show because I feel, especially with the Internet, giving feedback becomes important.

"I feel like I see more often people don't necessarily stay up late to watch late night. They watch it online the next day. And I love late night. Conan was everything when I was coming up in New York comedy. My first gig in comedy was dressing up as characters on Conan. So I think late night is an area where there's historically been a lot of innovation. I don't know if it's a revolutionary thought, and I certainly hope it's not an antagonistic one, because I love Fallon and the others. But Letterman was the last real innovator in late night and everything else is kind of patterned off that.

"A world that would let me bring The Human Fish on late night would be a very good world. You know, we're on public access television, so when people say, 'Some of the stuff you do on there is insane,' I'm like, 'We're working on a platform that allows us to be insane.' I'll play by the rules wherever we go. The Human Fish is a guy in swim trunks and goggles. But people love interacting with him. They love calling in and saying, 'I want to ask The Human Fish a question.' And that's another thing I'd love to see on TV — this is what the show pitches, and we need you guys, the audience, to round it out and let us know how it goes.

"For me, my dream lineup would be somebody who's pretty normal and willing to come on and do something the audience isn't expecting. Something beyond, 'This is my movie, watch me be charming.' I'd rather, 'What's your thing? Playing Magic the Gathering? Well, let's play Magic the Gathering.' And then the second guest would be someone from the world of entertainment, an up-and-comer. And for the third guest, I'd really go out of my way to get some bands that are indicative of New York's local talent. You know, bands that might never go on TV if not for our show. That's the great thing about being in New York — I go to a lot of local shows, and there's some weird stuff out there, really unique and original and innovative.

"I really love Fallon playing games with the guests. In an ideal show, there'd be a way for the audience to be involved. I'd love to get celebrity involved and see a celebrity let their guard down for the audience. I love to think of my show now as a video game in which I'm the main character, and the audience calls in and says, 'Do this next.' I'm getting excited just talking about it."

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Chris Gethard is in this year's The Heat and hosts The Chris Gethard Show.